Basic Concepts and Terms in Sociology -Explained

  1. Demographic: Related to age, sex, density and overall structure of the population
  2. Migration: Movement of people either temporarily or permanently from one part of the country to another.
  3. Rural-Urban Continuum: A process of socioeconomic interaction between the villages and the towns or cities
  4. Urban Density: It refers to the number of people in an urban area per square kilometre.
  5. Urbanization: the Urban way of life
  6. Material Density: It is the density of population as described by Emile Durkheim. It refers to a simple ratio of people to land
  7. Rationality: It is the practice of treating reason as the basis of belief and knowledge
  8. Secularisation: The process by which religions or sacred values are replaced by scientific and rational values.
  9. Dynamic or Moral Density: It is the density of interaction between people of society as described by Emile Durkheim.
  10. Embourgeoisement: Bourgeoisement refers to the phenomenon of upward social mobility of lower-class people for instance entry of a working-class individual into the elite class through the acquisition of wealth or power.
  11. Jointness of a family: It refers to various dimensions of jointness in family structure, for instance, Coresidentiality, Commensality, coparcenary, obligation towards kin and sentiment of jointness.
  12. Varna: The Varna distributes social groups into four categories, all over India. It is a model of the social and ritual hierarchy of caste groups. These are four  Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and shudra. The Varna provides a culture idiom to the caste system.
  13. Social Structure: It is the organised pattern of the inter-related rights and obligation of persons and groups in a system of interaction as seen in terms of statuses, roles, institutions governed by social norms and values.
  14. Kindred of Recognition: The Kindred of recognition refers to that population, within a village in which cooperation in economic and ritual activities is through information and invitation.T his is a larger unit, spread over several villages fro each caste.
  15. Affirmative Action: These are the actions doing by the government in the form of grants and preference to minorities in order to develop of past and present discrimination and its main objective are to achieve economic equality.
  16. Agnosticism: It’s a view that the existence of God is unknown to them and it’s different from atheism
  17. Alienation: Marx Described by his concept that, how workers are robbed of their creativity and Imagination through Industrialisation.
  18. Altruistic Suicide: Emile Durkheim’s term and it say Human being who sacrifices for the good of the Group.
  19. Androgyny: It a Gender role makes male and female characteristics combine.
  20. Animism: It is a belief that supernatural beings like Spirits or Ancestors existing in  the bodies of present-day people or in creatures or in the environment objects which are physical in nature like water,
  21. Anomic Suicide: It’s a Durkheim’s term describes A person suicides due to the absence of norms in society.
  22. Anomie: normlessness and detachment from people in society or there is no social norms.
  23. Atheism: it’s a belief that there is no god exists.
  24. Ascribed Status: The Status which we are experiencing is not in our control like when someone born for billionaire, that child too billionaire now, it’s not in our control, the status acquired by nature through birth.
  25. Assimilation: absorption into the dominant culture.
  26. Authoritative leadership: an individual fashion of executing leadership in a stong.
  27. Authority: Exercising the power in a position the person holds.
  28. Peer Groups– Individuals in a society who are in similar in age or social position.
  29. Polyandry-  In this case, one  woman is allowed to marry more than one husband
  30. Polygamy- Its a type of marriage accepting for more than one marriage partner.
  31. Polygyny– In this case, one man is married to two or more women at the same time, and it’s similar to polyandry only Woman and Man are the differences.
  32. Political Socialization- individuals are getting political beliefs and values in society.
  33. Barter: Exchanging of goods/things and No money involved in transactions, Barter system was followed the past, at present, we are in advance, we have net banking, instant transactions of crores of transactions.
  34. Battered Wife Syndrome: Due to long time abuse caused in victims of domestic violence and it’s a mental disorder.
  35. Behaviourism: Its theory says that The pattern behaviour is learnt but not by biologically determined.
  36. Bias Theory: This theory blames the actual experience for the secondary status of a minority group.
  37. Born Again: A Christian concept  and this marks a life-transforming period for the individual and is accompanied by ritual rights of passage
  38. Race: A system of classification of humans into different categories and groups by considering their culture, language, Region, religion, genetic, etc
  39. Racial Steering: When Buying a home, Real estate brokers use to practice, towards or away from neighbourhoods, it depends on the race of neighbourhoods.
  40. Racism: Racial Category used to justice that their practices, attitudes are superior or inferior to other Racial Categories.
  41. Random Sample: Each Individual in a group being studied and everyone will get an equal chance of inclusion in the sample
  42. Rank Society: Suppose, A chief in society will give more authority in terms of his/her Genealogical distance, close relatives of chief have a higher rank in social status when we compare with other individuals in society.
  43. Rationalization: It means, modern society should have logical reasons and more efficient rather than moral and traditional ways.
  44. Rational legal authority: The authority of an institution/organization is tied with rules, regulation, laws and here legal domination is very high, so its also called rational authority, legal authority and legal domination and also called bureaucratic authority. It’s one type of authority in Marx Weber’s concept, still, there are two types of authority called charismatic and traditional.
  45. Real Culture: It’s one type of culture, another one is called Ideal Culture, it means we have norms in the society which we have to follow but in real culture what actually norms we are following now.
  46. Recession: If an economic decline happens in successive of two or more quarters due to a decline in trade, it is called the recession.
  47. Reciprocal Exchange: Based on their role commitment, in the nonmarket transfer of their goods and services in between two or more persons, Kula exchange in the Trobriand Islands is the best example for it.
  48. Redistribution: The distribution of goods and services happens in between people or groups to a superior power for the allocation of goods and services
  49. Reductionism: In this sense, if we divide complex things into fundamental So it can be easy to analyze or examine.
  50. Reference group: Sociologist says, Comparing our selves with other individual/growth for standard evaluation.
  51. Reform Movement: It’s a social movement, to see the change in society in certain aspects, not the fundamental changes, this reform movement aims to see the gradual change in society for the particular aspect.
  52. Relations of Production: Having a relationship between, the workers/laborers and means of production’s owner, we called it a Relations of production.
  53. Respondent: Replying to the questions of a survey, for instance, a person collecting census data, the public has to answer their questions.
  54. Reverse Discrimination: Discrimination against the majority or dominant group and supporting the minorities group, which are dominated by the majority group. For example, supporting Transgender while they discriminating in society
  55. Revitalization Movement: It is a conscious and organised attempt by individuals in society to build a new culture which should be more satisfying in society. Ghost Dance is the example for Revitalization Movement.
  56. Revolutionary Movement: A movement causes in society to see changes in every aspect of society, for instance, the industrial revolution, French Revolution and etc.
  57. Rituals: Practices in society, for example, a wedding ceremony
  58.  Research Design: It is a professional method for conducting research and also to obtain Data.
  59. Resocialization: Its a learning process of new social life, for example, if we go different country we might see different social norms, so we have to socialize their norms, so it’s a Resocialization.
  60. Representative Democracy: It is an Indirect democracy happens in countries like United states, their citizens elect officials to represent their interests.
  61. Relative Poverty: A sort of condition of being poor that is strong of purpose by income distribution over a given group and is through arts or learning formed according to society wise norms.
  62. Resource Mobilization Theory: It’s a theory in sociology says that in social movement members should able to acquire resources and mobilize the movement’s goals in public.
  63. Resistance Movement: It’s a social movement tries to stop or reverse social, cultural or economic structural changes.

Check: Sociology Dictionary

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